The art of potato processing to produce dehydrated potato flakes is replete with processes for producing dehydrated potato flakes. The ultimate goal of such processes, of course, is to have a product which has qualities as close as possible to those of prepared, fresh potatoes in order to achieve as high as possible consumer acceptance for the product. Typical of such processes are those disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,787,553; 2,959,487; 3,009,817; and 3,764,716. The disclosures in all cited patents, books, etc., are incorporated herein by reference. A typical prior art process involves first washing the potatoes and optionally peeling them after the washing step. After this, the potatoes are sliced, blanched, cooled and steam cooked. After the cooking, the potatoes are riced and if not peeled before this step, can be peeled during the ricing step as, for example, by an apparatus disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,862,345. After ricing, the processed potatoes have additives for prevention of various modes of failure added thereto and are subsequently flaked and cooled. After cooling, flavoring can be added to the flaked potatoes prior to packaging the thus prepared dehydrated potato flakes for storage, shipment and distribution to the ultimate consumer.
The problem with such processes, as have been practiced in the past, is that of simultaneously achieving both taste and texture qualities of freshly prepared mashed potatoes. The immediately above-described process will provide a potato flake product which has acceptable but less than optimal texture and taste qualities. Some processes are known which will provide an acceptable product as far as taste is concerned, but the product is unacceptable as far as texture is concerned in that the reconstituted product is pasty which is objectionable to consumers.
In the prior art, in order to achieve a product which is acceptable in taste, processes are sometimes used which result in a product which when reconstituted has a pasty texture and, therefore, unacceptable to the ultimate consumer. The pastiness is due to the disruption of individual potato flesh cells which allows gelatinized starch to be present in a free form throughout the potato mass. This is often the result of using certain cooking approaches (such as straight steam cooking) which are practiced to produce the acceptable taste.
In preparing a product which when reconstituted would provide an acceptable texture, the taste was objectionable because during processing the steps of water blanching and cooling are required for achieving the correct texture. These steps result in leaching and various aqueous phase reactions which degrade the taste quality of the reconstituted product.
In the prior art, one method of achieving better taste qualities in a product having acceptable texture properties was by the addition of taste additives to the product. However, in view of current consumer sentiment, the addition of additives is objectionable if it can be avoided. Thus, it would be highly desirable to provide a product which would not require the addition of flavorings in order to have an acceptable taste and texture product.
It is well known in the art that dehydrated potatoes will degrade, as far as taste and texture qualities are concerned, with age. Degrading is accelerated by an increase in the storage temperature, an increase in the product moisture content and an increase in the oxygen in the environment surrounding the product. The prior art dehydrated potatoes normally had a taste and texture quality which was marginally acceptable immediately after the product was produced but after storage the dehydrated potatoes would degrade with a consequent lowering of the taste and texture qualities. Thus, with the unpredictability of storage conditions and storage life, a consumer could buy one box of product which would be marginally acceptable and the next box would be totally unacceptable. Even worse, the first box of the product may be totally unacceptable and no more product of the particular brand would be purchased because of the initial impression. Accordingly, it would be highly desirable to provide a product which would start at an initially higher value for taste and texture qualities whereby during degradation during storage the product would still be more acceptable to the consumer upon ultimate consumption. Typically, shelf life of such products can extend to, on the average, up to 18 months.
It is well known to those skilled in the art that dehydrated potato products will generally degrade, under the same storage conditions, at the same rate irrespective of the manner in which the product was processed. Thus, a process is required which will place the prepared dehydrated potato products at an initially higher value for taste and texture and other qualities than currently existing products in order to provide the increased shelf life and a product which is more acceptable to the ultimate consumer.